UConn Women’s Soccer Schedule Released

The 2017 UConn women’s soccer schedule has been unveiled, with opponents, dates and locations for the Huskies’ 18-game season.

In total, UConn plays nine games at home and nine on the road. They open their season against former Big East rival Syracuse on August 21 before returning home on August 25 for their home opener against Yale.

Continuing the non-conference slate, the Huskies will host Arkansas, Long Beach State and Colorado Collge, and will travel to play Rutgers and Fordham. They will also play against St. John’s and Central Connecticut in the CCSU Tournament in New Britain.

The most notable matchup in conference play comes against the SMU Mustangs, who UConn beat in the AAC Tournament Final last season. The senior night festivities will be held on October 27 against Temple.

The Huskies have a lot to replace this season, with key players graduated on both offense and defense.

Offensively, Stephanie Ribeiro and Rachel Hill lead the team with 21 and 17 goals, respectively. In total, the team needs to replace 91% of their scoring from a season ago. Of the players they have returning, only Alexa Casimiro had more than one goal.

On the other side of the ball, the impact of their losses are not as easy to measure but are still significant. The Huskies lost their center defender in Tori Patterson as well as goalkeeper Emily Armstrong. Both were named AAC Player of the Year at their respective positions in 2016.

UConn will be tested early, facing five teams that made the NCAA Tournament a season ago. Strength of schedule was a big issue for the Huskies last season as they only played a handful of quality teams early in the season but dominated the American Conference.

When it came time to face a quality team in the NCAA Tournament, they fell 4-0. Even if the game was closer than the score suggests, the lack of adversity throughout the season clearly hurt them in the end.